I've had an idea. As I'm working away on my PhD, there's a million questions not related to my PhD that I want to ask and I'll probably never find the answers for. So, I thought we could start a thread with an aim unlike any of the others that has gone before. A thread with serious intent. A thread designed to uncover and answer mysteries that have forever baffled us. I'm involved in a particularly weird profession and my research is related to it. I have so many questions concerning it, but, alas, they are not fit for public consumption. I am cognizant that some of the finest minds in the world frequent this site because I've read some sentences of late that have complicated words in them, so we may be able to help each other out with this - that would be great.
So, in Question Time with Walminskipeasucker...

1) Is man-made global warming real or not? I read so many stories in the media, but like a blade of grass in the wind I'm tossed from one side of the argument to the other. I really, really want to know.The right-wing part of my brain says no, but the left-wing part does protest.

2) Why, if you're in a plummeting lift, can't you just jump up high right before it crashes to the floor and thus avoid inevitable death?

3) Not sure how to word this one, but will it ever be possible to transform atoms in such a way that lead can be turned into gold and so forth?

Now to the rational man, they may seem stupid, but these are the questions that baffle me daily and if I was having tea with Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton and the lads, this is what I would be asking as I passed around the After Eights.

So, does anybody have any answers or like to list any questions that befuddle them senseless? Please join in in Question Time With...



:-)

Walminski, don't forget about rational 'woman' too - don't exclude half the population.

Well, women are actually slightly more than half the population. Physiologically speaking, if men were petrol engines, women would be diesel engines. So, good point Sue. But who could I invite? Certainly not Germain Greer. Although very smart indeed, it'd be like putting caustic soda on mi cornflakes - she's far too cutting and biting. Wouldn't mind Audrey Tatou (Ooh la la :$) or Dawn French though - not sure if they'd be able to help me with my questions, but may liven things up.

I think the answer to 2 would be that as the lift starts to fall you get thrown up to the ceiling. Then basically you are free-falling at the same speed as the lift - it hits the ground first and then you smash into the floor of the lift and die. There would be nowhere to jump from cos you wouldn't be touching the floor?
Or maybe you would stay on the floor, but you couldn't counter the force of gravity pulling you down enough to try to jump? Hmm.

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Hey Sue, it could be that Wally is paying us all the honor of recognising the universality of rationality amongst women by treating it as a given - he could just ask any woman; no need to specify which one when any would povide pearls of incomparable widom, maybe... maybe. How about Bonnie Greer? She's a bright spark, or Virginia Wolfe, or the modern creative genius, Catherine Bigalow, or Iris Murdoch, or Susan Sontag or Mariner Warner, or even Oprah Winfrey -she alwasy knows about this sort of stuff. Sorry, don't know about science. I'm sure Madonna would be in the know about any significant developments in the last topic though.



I think man made global warming is real; my opinion is based on my view that humans ravage the earth selfishly as part of their en-masse character, and that it's likely to be destroying the place, and therefore needs curbing.



I have another question: Audrey Tatou is fabulous, but she seems reeeeaaaaly popular with male PhD students; is there some connection?

I've no idea about number 3, but it's a nice question for those non-scientists amongst us who think about materials. As human remains can be turned into diamonds, who knows. :-)

Wal, I have questions too, but ones that I fear are way too banal for this room :-)

Why do traffic lights always go red for pedestrians when I reach the crossing?

When I write why do repeated words fall below each other on a MS Word line? I.e. if two successive sentences have the word 'good' in it twice, why does the second 'good' always fall under the first one, it doesnt happen for many others, and drives me nuts!!

What happens if I am lying on the grass and an insect enters my ear and lays eggs in my brain?

Why do I feel hungry immediately after I have eaten a meal?

Blimey, Eska, so many names of notable women. I need to be careful here, lest I come across as a male chauvinistic pig - which I iz not. Audrey Tatou and the mass infatuation she receives from male PhD students? I was not aware of this, probably because I'm not exposed to any other PhD students in the main. I, personally, think she's quite nice because she's just, well, different and (I'll pass you the sick bucket) cookie. Thank you for answering my global warming question too - thought we had a hand in stuff. I thought the philosophy was crap in the leather clad Matrix movies, but Agent Smith with his Weetabix Pocketbook Guide to Philosophy was right when he said, "Humans are a virus..yada yada..."
Thanks to melsie for helping me with my plummeting lift quandary. However, you've now single handedly destroyed any hope of survival I had should I find myself in a plummeting lift. Fortunately, the one's at my uni would only drop about three floors. So, a broken ankle at worst and time of from my PhD - yeah!
Bug, you've made me even more confused with your similarly baffling questions! And given me reason to procrastinate with Word - I'm now going to mess around with sentences that include the word 'good' to see if I can replicate your traumatic experience. W.r.t insects laying eggs in your brain, there's quite a lot of tissues between your ear canal and brain - drugs have enough trouble trying to get there. I think you're quite safe from something like that happening. But, I remember watching some Star Trek movie years ago, and the bugs in those movies had no trouble getting into your grey matter, via either the ear or nostrils. So, terrestially your problem is solved but as far as Hollywood and the matter of the universe is concerned you question still stands.:-)

Oooh ooh, I know about the lift thing - you're safe Wally!!! I've read somewhere that if you are in a lift with a particularly large person, provided you can kind of sit on top of them then you're less likely to end up pizzafied yourself :-) You can't do the jumping thing, it doesn't work, BUT if you jump onto a large person then them being ermmmm mashed up by the impact will reduce the effect on you :-)

I'm not a global warming fan - I think its a big means of increasing taxation - not the climate change isn't happening, but I think its incredibly arrogant to suggest its manmade - controversial but hey ;-)

Bug - I too wonder about Word - I find the same - and if you have the same word 3 times in a paragraph they can almost be guaranteed to line up and out has to come the thesaurus ;-)

Yes I believe so. There was a very interesting french scientist named Corentin Louis Kervran who tried to demonstrate that living organisms do this all the time. He wrote extensively on it -- biological transmutation -- and was even nominated for a nobel prize by a Japanese professor. His ideas have of course been widely dismissed, largely because they don't align with our modern understanding of physics. However, if there is a way to do this then it seems plausible to suggest that life, somewhere, has figured it out.

Atoms can be changed to make Green!

I kinda think the whole climate change thing is a bit odd - why have a small amount of people being banging on about it for years and then suddenly we all have to use different lightbulbs? - lightbulbs that probably take up much more energy making them, and if they break you have to leave the room because they release horrible gases etc.??? - is it cos they want to worry the big oil people? or will the whole matter be dropped after the election??

Not sure about the lift - surely you can just hold on to the rail and therefore just stay where you are when the lift falls?

Question 1: why do people act like the animal they most look like?

My theory - because darwin was half right, but we all evolved from animals - e.g. I evolved from a rabbit, Wal evolved from a lemur - we all turned out human but we look/act a bit like what we evolved from. Ok its not exactly science but its what I like to think!


Question 2: why don't we believe in 'wicked - cool' gods anymore? surely some bloke wielding a hammer is a better explanation for thunder than any meterologists can come up with. And surely worshipping gods like thor, or odin is far cooler than one old bloke with a beard???

This sounds like something Dawkins would say. Dawkins is a profound ignoramus.

I don't know who Dawkins is but it sounds like a good geeky duo - "Clogs and Dawkins playing for one night only at the Geek convention in Dorking" maybe you could support The Procrastinators

WalmartPeewinsnki told me I'm not welcome to join The Procrastinators *sob*

Well, cloverclegs, you would only make us feel inferior about our mediocre IQs. :-(